What happened is, some young guy went out to a bar, got into some kind of altercation, got stabbed by the guy he was fighting with, and died. The guy who stabbed him got arrested and--in keeping with Cook County's new "catch-and-release" program even for those that commit violent felonies--was let go after arraignment.
So what happens is, the dead guy's family is outraged that the killer of their loved one isn't still in jail, and organizes a protest. And where do you think they go? Do they go to the police station? Do they go to the courts building? Do they go to the jail, or City Hall, or the Cook County headquarters?
Of course not! No, they go to the bar and protest there, and pound on the door and make a huge scene when the owners refuse to let them inside.
Me: What the fuck does the bar have to do with it?
Whatever involvement the bar may have in the case at hand, it is not the owners of the bar who gave the perp a "get out of jail free" card. That's Cook County that did that. If you're mad that the guy who stabbed your family member is not in jail, how about protesting against the people who are really responsible for him not being in jail?
I suppose it's possible that the knife-wielding man was a part owner or employee of the establishment--but even so, making a scene outside the bar still doesn't do anything against the people who actually made that decision, now does it?
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I'm so glad that the Illinois state government has solved its budget shortfall so that it has the time and money to spend on this kind of horseshit. "Prom kings and queens in Illinois could be dethroned if the 'Affirming and Inclusive Schools Task Force' has its way." Well, I'm sure glad we're spending money we don't have on this stupid crap, let me tell you, because it's not like the state is so broke it can't even afford to pay attention or anything.
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What it boils down to is that Mike Bloomberg is very rich and powerful, and that just makes him more important than you are. So you see, that's why he can have an armed security detail to protect his life and property, while you will just have to make do with police that might come to help you in fifteen or twenty minutes. Or might not. But they'll get there eventually, and in the worst case they can write a report about the crimes you're a victim of!
I am so glad that shithead has dropped out of the race. Maybe now we can have our lives back:
And someone doubtless has told him by now that "Tejas" means "roof tiles", you stupid little shithead.
Of course, what Bloomberg will now do is to concentrate on buying as many House and Senate seats as he can for the Democrats.
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"The core of Communism itself is dishonesty." Bet your ass it is.
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Another perspective on Boeing's total fuckup with Starliner. The test they needed to do, and did not do--to save money--was a complete "end-to-end" test that would have taken 25 continuous hours, but likely would have revealed the problems that the test flight revealed.
You do not skip out on testing like this. It's like Ford putting cars into production without a prototype ever being driven around a test track and saying "we tested all the parts independently and they passed, so why bother testing the whole car?" What sort of person would go to a dealer and buy one? Nobody, that's who.And a short bit after that explanation, we then have the best encapsulation of what is wrong with Boeing that I've seen since the 737MAX fiasco began:
Somewhere along the line, Boeing management forgot that they are in the business of making aircraft. They think of themselves as BA (NYSE)....for a while. Until the FAA makes them stop building airplanes, until people stop buying their products, until the company fails because it's not making any money any longer.
When you are an aerospace company, you approach things from an engineering perspective. Your goal is to make the best aircraft you can. You worry about tests and performance.
When you are a stock value, you worry about your shareholders getting pissed at you. You cut corners to save money on testing and then your fucking plane falls out of the sky and your spaceship fails to enter orbit.
The passengers may fall screaming to earth to die in a fiery crash, but management survives with their golden parachutes.
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More about corporations thinking about stock value rather than what its core business is. Disney wanted to replace all its employees with contract workers. Why? Because their health insurance costs were going to be $90 million, and if everyone was a contractor the company wouldn't have to pay for health insurance. Apparently there was a meeting about it where employees were told what would happen:
One of my coworkers then pointed out a news article where the CEO had received $270 million in pay, company stock, and other benefits the previous year. He then asked if they could pay the CEO only $180 million and let all of the other employees keep their jobs. The meeting was abruptly ended at that point.Of course it did. That's an "inappropriate and hostile response".
Somewhere--I cannot recall where--I came across an excellent piece about vulture capitalism and its horribly negative effects on the economy, but now I can't seem to find it.
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The guy who writes Up Ship Blog is an atheist and that's usually no big deal except when he starts posting stuff like that.
They're closing the Lourdes shrine due to coronavirus. "Wouldn't this be a FANTASTIC opportunity to prove out the effectiveness of their 'healing pools?'"
No, for the simple reason that they don't cure everyone. I don't think the Church claims that they heal everyone, either. You're not going to find a 100% effective miracle cure anywhere in the world, something that works every time it's tried and never fails to cure diseases. What you're going to find is something that works sometimes, and other times works in ways that you're not expecting.
Okay: 10,000 people line up and 10% of them are contagious with COVID-19. At the end of that day, they'll all be infected. Maybe two or three would have died of it, but don't because they waded in the water. How do you know?
"It's almost as if the people who run the place don't have complete faith in the miraculousness of their miracles."
But miracles don't happen to order and they don't happen every day. What makes Lourdes a holy site is that a young girl had a vision of the Virgin Mary there; the waters have supposedly healed some people, but those cases are very rare, and everyone knows it. If cures were guaranteed, you'd have people from all over the world lining up 24/7 to be cured of their diseases. Most health care systems would stop prescribing chemotherapy and start buying plane tickets for cancer patients, for crying out loud, if that were the case. They'd bottle the water and sell it all over the world by the milliliter. "I was dying of advanced AIDS but this stuff cured me!" "I had ALS but I can dance again!" "I'm a former alcoholic and my liver had turned into beef jerky, but now I'm completely healthy!"
Atheists do this kind of thing a lot, though: they sneer and jape at religion from a position of poor understanding. There's not going to be any proof of God's existence, not for a long while yet, and a spring that healed anyone who touched it would be absolutely incontrovertible. But what atheists really do not undestand at all is what faith is.
...and so it makes sense to close it, to prevent the spread of disease.
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The other half, about anointing your butthole with essential oils being a cure for COVID-19? That's the kind of ascientific shit I'd expect from muslims.
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Chuck Schumer threatened Supreme Court justices. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are Trump's appointees, and they are not likely to rule in favor of legalized abortion.
I'd be fine with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. The issue belongs at the state level, not the federal one. Roe v. Wade was an overly broad ruling anyway; it did not just rule that a specific law was unconstitutional, but ruled that no law banning abortion could be constitutional, which is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
Failing that, I'd like that precedent to be applied to gun laws: that because "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is explicitly stated in the Constitution, that there can be no constitutional law that bans or limits citizen access to firearms. We'd get our same-day machine gun purchases back!
...but of course abortion is the sacrament of leftism, and so nothing must be allowed to interfere with it.
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I heard Limbaugh talk about this. They don't want Bernie to win the nomination because if he does, he becomes the de facto (if not also de jure) leader of the Democrat party...and a lot of people who have feathered their nests and filled their rice bowls by being party bigwigs will lose their cushy sinecures.
...these people out there have their lives wired. It's what being in an elite club like this means. It's why you go to the universities that train you and position you for eventual membership in the so-called Washington establishment.And you're set for life as long as you keep saying the right things. You know all the richest and most powerful people in the country. You get to go to all the big parties. And you never, never, ever have to worry about whether or not you'll have a job this time next year, or next decade.
It's incestuous. Once you're in it, you're guaranteed a job. You're guaranteed influence.
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I have to admit, I like this idea a lot. But if they did it to scale, that canal would be about 200 miles wide.
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Anyway, it's Wednesday night. Today was a day, and I'm really glad it's over.
My uncle's TV went out, and he'd lost my phone number, so last week he left a note on my front door. I went and talked to him about it
35" glass bulb, weighed a ton--anyway he bought a blab slab but needed to be rid of the old one, so I volunteered to dispose of it for him. Last night, after work, I picked it up; with the help of one of his neigbors we crammed it into the back of the Jeep. This evening after work I dropped it at the recycling point which is done every first and third Wednesday in a town not far from the Fungal Vale.
The days are slowly getting longer, anyway; there was still enough light to see by when I got home from all that. Spring is on its way.